You have a limited budget of $2,000 (US). Do you buy links or create / seed content?
-
We have a client who is being told by their incumbent supplier that they should renew their annual contract to buy links on 4 domains by their incumbent SEO agency. It will cost approximately $2,000.
We are recommending they produce decent content, like a video, an infographic based on data that is exclusively theirs and seed this with bloggers / real world publications / trade press / etc.
The client is struggling to make a decision because he's caught between two SEO's with different approaches. He doesn't have the budget for both. He's scared of losing his position in the SERPs.
So, I said I'd get some votes from other SEO's. Which would you recommend?
Option 1
- 1,000's of links
- on 4 domains
Option 2
- Create link bait
- Seed using social media
GO!
-
If you're not providing at least some of both of those services for your potential client you will be doing ineffective SEO and somewhat of a disservice to them. The link building efforts should support quality content. It will help with the dissemination. To me spending all your money on content would be like buying a car but not spending any money on gas.
-
No. 2
Produce Great content - I would suggest... take a topic - a crucial one - on which ur target audience really needs help.
Make a full strategy around producing 4 pieces of content to comprehensively cover the topic so that everyone really understands it.
Hire a pro - a professor, doctor etc who really knows the topic and is actually well known for it.
The 4 content items are
1. An article (SEO optimization is best on articles)
2. White-paper
3. Video - this could be Q&A interview with the same expert who has produced the content OR it could be a teaching video for the topic
4. Infographic
Finally.. once you got it all... ensure you market the whole package and seed it every where as a whole package.
And now... just spend $200 (out of the initial $2000 budget) to ask and get 3-4 top bloggers with the biggest and most relevant following to write a post on the content package OR give 2 anchor text links to the page where u will host the content.
Hope this has been helpful.
Regards,
Talha
-
Absolutely - Content - that's what the whole idea of having the site should be in the first place - you have something that attracts others.
If it's the E-commerce site - articles about specific products, if it's a Blog - you know already what you want it to contain. Links generated this way will last longer and will be constantly expanding - meaning every so often someone will place a link to your article somewhere else. Have a look at how many links you can find in the threads posted in this forum - most of them to the Google resources, but still - if it was a forum about something else you'd find a different ones.
I've never spent a penny on links and I do have really good results by just posting new articles of interest and tutorials.
What you could also do is to create the RSS feed for all these articles and submit them to the RSS directories - that is if you want to generate some links. Every time the RSS feed is updated (either dynamically from the database or manually) the RSS directory displays the new link automatically.
I hope this helps.
-
Good idea to keep some budget back for Stumble Upon ads... Not really got a great deal of experience here, but they should be useful to get the social sharing started.
-
Need a button for 'two thumbs up' EGOL!
That's a more comprehensive answer than we'd have hoped for.
To answer the questions, the client is keen to generate the content. We've had some ideas that we think will get knocked for six (if you don't mind me changing your baseball to a cricket ball) and we're looking to help them identify the audience that will share it.
But, seeing it set out so simply, it's a great reminder that we really need to do ALL THREE wonderfully, to get it right.
Brilliant EGOL, thanks so much.
-
I would do the same as EGOL.
If I did go the infographic route I would keep some money back for stumble upon ads and adwords to try and get the social signals going.
-
Just like Egol said, it is all about engaging your audience:
1. You can create the content that is good for SEO, but will it drive traffic?
2. Is you audience more opened to video or articles? Or maybe webinars, infographics, etc. etc.
First of all, I would check for what my audience is looking for, what is that really makes them take action and then try to work out with the budget part and plan the creations strategy.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
If I had the $2000 I would spend all of it on content... and if I had a steady stream of $2000 / month I would spend ALL of it that way.
Would I do it if I were your client? I don't know. It depends on three things....
-
Who will be making this content? Most people can't make successful content. At least, that's my opinion.
-
Do you have content ideas that will hit a homerun?
-
Do you have an audience who will engage with that content? (share it widely)
Do you have ALL THREE of these? If you fail in any one of them then you wasted $2000.
To be fair, you need certain things in place for paid links to succeed. Those things vary by niche but are mainly based upon what is on your site and how effective it is at converting visitors into money. Much more complex, in my opinion, but easier to pull off.
-
-
Number 2 if done correctly.
And if your client still doesn't see sense - email them this: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736
-
Well,once again I come up with the same issue: please forget about SEO companies who tell buying thousands of incompetent link in order to rank higher.
Instead I would go on your idea, create something that is really helpful for their possible clients, their visitors. Go try to create some video series, start blogging, be there on social networks and respond to their inquiries.
In long term the results will pay out.
I hope you can convince your clients.
Good luck!
Istvan
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I filter the results of an user comparison by language/country?
Is it possible to filter the follower list after comparing the followers of 2 twitter accounts? E.g comparing Twitter acc. A and B, select followers of both, receive follower list --> no language/country filter available. Any chance?
Social Media | | lcourse0 -
Ranking without links but through Social Media popularity
Does anyone have an example of a web page that is ranking soley through social media popularity and does not have any inbound (website to website) links? I am creating a presentation on SEO and Social Media and it would be great to have an example. Thanks Carla
Social Media | | Carla_Dawson1 -
Duplicating content on more than one social network
I am just getting in to social media for my company and i can find an answer to my questions. Different people give a different answer. Question: i have written a post and uploaded it to our Google+ page. If i upload the same post / content to our Facebook page, will this fall foul of the 'duplicate content' rule with Penguin? Or does that rule only relate to websites? Any Guru's out there with an answer? Much appreciated. Si
Social Media | | DaddySmurf1 -
How to make good content go viral?
Hi, have a question on the distribution of content which is designed to go viral. Let say you have written awesome content, with great visuals, etc which is designed to go viral. Your site is relatively new - not many social media followers, DA authority, or natural traffic. What would be a good process of distributing that content - getting the content out there so it has the best chance and ability to go viral and generate links. So far i have: Use press releases to distribute that content, using a distribution service like: prnewswire.com. Hope its picked up by a news site or something. Contact Facebook Pages or Twitter Pages who have a large audience of the type of people who would be interested in the content. Ask them if they can share the content. Content sites related to the content, and ask them to share it with their users (Give them a incentive e.g. money, a gift, etc) I think number 1 would yield the best possible results in getting actual sites linking to you. 2 and 3 are more designed for people (who very few would have blogs) to read the content. Any other suggestions, i'm missing out on? Any good articles you guys recommend, i should checkout? Thanks, Matt
Social Media | | Mattcarter080 -
Are links between a subdomain and a root domain internal or external?
We have a microsite on a subdomain that is kind of a community site that has articles posted to it several times per week. The articles are often relevant to topics covered on the root domain, so links are often included. My question is, are links between the subdomain and root domain considered internal or external? Also, how much of a difference does the location of the links make? For example, if we have a related links menu with links to the root domain is that good enough, or is it that much better to have the links embedded in the article text (toward the beginning of the article)?
Social Media | | unitedairlines0 -
Do facebook shares pass share juice the same way links pass link juice?
If i have a page on my domain say PAGE-A and let's say it's located at: http://www.mydomain.com/something/page-a and this page has quite a lot of page authority from many many inbound links. It is my understanding that if i "sculpt" the internal links on PAGE-A to point at only my primary targets, let's call the PAGE-B, PAGE-C, and PAGE-D; then those pages would gain some benefit from this link juice flowing through. Consider a similar situation where i have a page, say PAGE-F located at: http://www.mydomain.com/anotherpage/page-F and page-F gets 150 facebook shares. would the links on page-F pass this benefit on in any way? Or is only the direct target of the facebook share gaining benefit from this facebook sharing? Furthermore, lets consider a scenario where there are 30 or 40 similar pages like PAGE-F all with links out to my primary targets. Would these primary targets gain anything as these 30 or 40 pages gained facebook shares? Repeat above question, replace 'facebook' with 'twitter'. repeat again for 'google+' ?
Social Media | | adriandg0 -
Quality link building methods??
I am getting more and more confused by the messages out there about "post Panda" link building methods. Apparently Google has devalued many of the old methods such as Article Marketing, Profile Linking, Web 2.0 content etc. But all I hear is that instead of that you must create "quality content" that users want to link to naturally. But hey.... how do users find your quality content if you don't already rank in the search engines?? Isn't it a bit chicken and egg? So, if I write what I think is a really good blog post or product page now, I can not really do anything to help it along in getting some decent rankings so that people will actually find the page and maybe link to it?? I also hear that "Social Signals" are becoming more important for rankings. Facebook likes and Google +1's Can anybody tell me how you encourage people to like and +1 the standard info pages of your website, like "Home Page" or "Service Page"? or is the future of search all about "commentary". Do I need to write a witty interesting blog post that appeals to masses that then links to my service or product page. Do I need to tweet to my non existent followers about a page I cant get ranked in the search engines? or blog "quality content" to no-one because I have no traffic coming to my website?? As you can probably tell, I am very confused with the messages, post panda. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me with the order of the new Search Marketing strategies. If I write a quality web page, then what? If I don't already have a traffic source either in Social Media or other related web pages, what is the best way to go about gaining rankings and traffic from search? Thanks
Social Media | | websearchseo0 -
How to Position Yourself When Doing Link Building & Outreach on behalf of Clients?
One of the things we struggle with is how to position ourselves when doing outreach such as link building on behalf of a client. We know many times it is best for outreach to come directly from the client themselves so that it comes across as more genuine. However, some clients prefer to outsource the entire process. When doing outreach on behalf of clients, how do you position yourself? Are you typically transparent about being a marketer working for an agency, or do you spin it more as being someone 'with' the company? Does it ever make sense to use aliases?
Social Media | | Jeff-Hahn0